News headlines in January 2022, page 9

Five years after its signing, the Final Peace Agreement in Colombia is setting down ever deeper roots, the Special Representative for the country told the Security Council on Thursday, as he called on the Government, political parties, former combatants and Colombians across the diverse South American nation, to intensify implementation of the landmark 2016 accord ahead of Congressional elections. 

The United Nation’s General Assembly adopted on Thursday, by consensus, a resolution that condemns denial and distortion of the Holocaust. 

Extreme poverty in West Africa rose by nearly three per cent in 2020, another fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, a UN-backed report launched on Thursday that looks at the socio-impact of the crisis has revealed. 

Some 12,000 households have been affected by the volcanic eruption and tsunami that hit the islands of Tonga over the weekend, according to estimates by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). 

Although young people have been at the forefront of efforts to build and sustain peace, opportunities for them to make a meaningful contribution remain insufficient, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday. 

The UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Thursday urged Israeli to immediately halt all evictions and demolitions in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, after an entire family was forced out of their long-term home the previous day.  

For the first time in Africa since the peak of the Omicron wave, weekly COVID-19 cases dropped significantly and deaths dipped, the World Health Organization (WHO) informed on Thursday. 

One of the largest coral reefs in the world has been discovered by a UN-supported scientific mission off the coast of Tahiti. Announcing the stunning find on Thursday, UNESCO said that divers had explored large rose-shaped corals spanning some three kilometres, at depths of between 30 and 65 metres.

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 20 (IPS) - “Persons with disabilities are capable and equal. It is time the world understands that,” says Antonio Palma, a UN Volunteer at the Resident Coordinator’s Office in Guatemala. Antonio, who has a visual impairment, expresses what many other persons with disabilities feel. Ignored, mistreated, misunderstood, underestimated, condescended to.

Jan 19 (IPS) - Not for the first time, global energy markets are in turmoil. Internationally traded gas prices more than quadrupled in 2021. In their wake, many energy suppliers have gone bust and household bills across Europe are set to soar. Energy prices are driving up the cost of living and inflation, but this is also a moment to realise the old saying: “never waste a good crisis”.